Ngo Dinh Nhu

Ngo Dinh Nhu (7 October 1910-2 November 1963) was the younger brother and chief political adviser of South Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem. Nhu exercised personal command of the ARVN special forces and the Personalist Labor Revolutionary Party apparatus, leading the regime's secret police. He was killed in the 1963 coup against his brother.

Biography
Ngo Dinh Nhu was born in Phu Cam, Annam, French Indochina on 7 October 1910, the younger brother of Ngo Dinh Diem. He was a quiet and bookish individual in his younger years, and he adopted the Catholic ideology of personalism while studying to be an archivist in France. Upon returning to Vietnam, Nhu assisted his brother in his rise to power, proving to be an astute and ruthless tactician and strategist. He formed and handpicked the members of the secret Can Lao Party, which swore its personal allegiance to the Ngo family, provided their power base, and eventually became their secret police force. Nhu remained the party's leader for the rest of his life, and he rigged the 1955 State of Vietnam referendum, which esconced Diem in power. Every part of society was infiltrated by the Can Lao Party, and he attempted to assassinate Prince Norodom Sihanouk with a mail bomb in 1959. In 1963, the Ngo family's grip on power became unstuck due to Diem's persecution of Buddhists, and the Buddhist majority of the nation rose up against the Catholic regime. Nhu attempted to use the special forces to raid prominent Buddhist temples, leaving hundreds dead; Nhu framed the regular army for these raids. The United States encouraged the military to overthrow the Ngo brothers after discovering this, but Nhu plotted a counter-coup and the assassination of US ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. and other American and opposition figures. He was fooled by the once-loyal general Ton That Dinh, however, and the brothers were detained on 2 November 1963. Nhu was bayonetted several times while riding in an APC with guards, while Diem was shot in the head with a revolver. The two brothers' deaths led to the rise of a military junta in the South.